Poor Unfortunate Soul
by Meepyonnee
Summary: Under no circumstances should anyone make a wager against the devil incarnate, A.K.A. Yasuhara Osamu. Two-shot.


A/N: Yes, you may sing the song from _'The Little Mermaid'._

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Poor Unfortunate Soul

- Part One -

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_I never should have made that bet._

The sunset painted Shibuya Psychic Research's quaint office with shades and shadows of an incandescent tinge as they permeated through bland windows. Inside, a lone high school student stood in the middle of the cramped kitchen as she drank her eleventh—or was it the twelfth?—cup of heavily caffeinated black tea. Of the day. The urge to gag arose to her throat, but thankfully, it wasn't volatile enough to make her puke her guts out. In the manner of someone finishing five consecutive shots of strong alcohol, she exhaled loudly when the cup met the counter after she quickly emptied it. She then inhaled, squeezing her eyes tightly shut as she kept herself from jumping out the window and ending it all.

_Ready to give up, Mai-san?_

She imagined herself dangling from the edge of the cliff above hell, just at the verge of going bonkers. Having strange dreams was one thing, but to hear a vivid embodiment of Yasuhara's jeering in her head was definitely something else.

Although, maybe he really _was_ jeering at her right now.

Paranoid, she threw her head left and right, sweeping her eyes throughout the room's minute expanse to search for her cunning co-worker. The girl regretted it instantly. A flurry of thunderbolts rained upon her skull and she clutched her head as if there was no tomorrow. She groaned as she bit her lip, only a second away from screaming from the top of her lungs. She never ever never should have made that bet, especially because the stakes were ridiculously ridiculous.

The day they made the bet had been a particularly long day at the office. The winter had settled in and they felt as if their butts had turned into icicles as they waited and waited for potential clients to come in. The two tried everything to satiate their boredom. They prank called Takigawa and Ayako, from which they gained nothing but furious squawks and bellows. They texted the word "Wazzup?" to Masako every minute, ultimately getting owned by the celebrity's manager after the fifth message. They wrote monstrous love notes to John—to be dumped into his mailbox later that evening. They even snuck into Lin's office while he was having lunch, but he brought his heavily guarded laptop with him, to the duo's dismay.

They cursed the sky's expanse as it teased them, refusing to spit out the moon. There were no files for Mai to tend to, no schoolwork for Yasuhara to fret over and no more SPR members to target. Except for the boss. For that, even Yasuhara knew when and where to draw the line. Crickets sung and tumbleweeds rolled as they had another round of their staring contest. It was then that Naru interrupted their 'acts of stupidity' for the nth time, demanding for a cup of his precious tea.

At one point after noon, between their guffaws from writing gooey nothings for John, they started making bets on what time Naru would ask for tea. It was as if they were guessing which horse would win a race. They each hunted for their own pen and paper and scribbled down particular times. Mai barely got two out of four and Yasuhara got three. They had underestimated Naru's tea-sucking powers though. While they expected that he would ask for only four more cups for the rest of the day, he wanted seven. Seven! All that within the span of just five hours!

Was that the bet she was whole-heartedly regretting now? No, it was the bet they made when their dismissal finally graced them. On their way to the train station, Yasuhara cheekily said, "I bet you can't drink as much tea as Big Boss."

Mai scoffed. "Of course I can't. I'm not an addict like him."

"Ah. Of course," he echoed, his infamous grin curling in place.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, really."

It took the boy only a few more baits until the girl predictably exploded into a prideful mess. She was red from both the cold of the season and from the ire he ignited, so in her clouded state, they agreed on the bet and the ante. She was to drink tea whenever Naru asked for a cup. It was only for a day, and it seemed harmless, so Mai thought that it wasn't such a stupid agreement.

Until now.

"Mai, tea!" Naru called from beyond his cave.

"What?!" She glanced at the wall clock above the kitchen's entrance. "It's only been _nine _minutes since the last one!"

Three erratic heartbeats later, Naru appeared between the door and the jamb, glaring at her with his deep blue eyes. He raised a delicate eyebrow and crossed his arms together in front of his torso. In that stance, it looked like he deemed that words were not needed here. At that, he slammed the door and marched back to his lair. Mai didn't even have the energy to retaliate; she was too busy trying to ignore the waves of pain against her cranium. At this rate, she would have to call this headache not as a migraine, but as a jackhammer running rampant across her cerebrum.

She was helpless and tired, bloating from the volumes of liquid she downed and suffering from a severe nuisance due to the excessive caffeine she wasn't used to ingesting. Actually, she was fine in the beginning. She was only a little hyper from the first three or so cups, but after the fifth, the urge to pee came minute after minute. When the eighth slithered down her throat, nausea consumed her entire being. By the tenth or eleventh or twelfth—she did not care to count anymore—everything meshed together along with the jackhammer.

Crying was never an option for her to take, but the sight of one tea kettle, two tea cups and three spoons of tea leaves gave her so much sorrow and anger—both of which were her top reasons for shedding irrational tears. She was quiet during the whole process of making the brew, only a few teary-eyed hiccups here and there broke the eerie silence. To her, only a few seconds passed when she finished. Couldn't she stall any longer? Couldn't she just put in pepper instead of honey so that the addict wouldn't want damn tea anymore?

A fleeting idea flashed through her mind as she travelled the distance between the kitchen and Naru's office. She thought about bringing her own cup in there so that she could drink it with him, shouting the word, "Kampai!" too, though that might've been as stupid as the bet.

Mai sighed as slowly and as carefully as her throbbing head would allow and heaved her arm up for a duple of disheartened raps to the CEO's door. Not having the patience to wait for an answer, she hobbled in thereafter. The teacup that held the mixture of tealeaves and teawater produced the smell of teafumes as it left her teaserving tray before landing on the teaaddict's dark mahogany desk. All she wanted was to run away from this maddening teaworld.

Naru silently lifted the dark green cup of pure evil, blowing inside the brim as he continued to click away with his computer mouse. Mai suspected that he was just playing _Solitaire_ again to make himself look busy, but she really couldn't care any less; she just wanted to go back home where her soft bed awaited with enticing fluffy pillows. She turned and started for the exit, not bothering to wait for impossible words of gratitude.

"Mai, are you alright?"

_Do my ears deceive me?_ Mai asked herself, incredulity successfully knitting her thin eyebrows together and tying her tongue back. His tone suggested that he did not care for the answer to the question, but this was an outright statement of worry! She knew that he always worried for her before since was often the target during their cases—and maybe because she tripped a lot—though he never voiced it without a lace of insults ready for takeoff…

"Have you knocked yourself on the head again while attempting to open one of the kitchen cabinets?"

The incredulity dutifully sank back to its trenches as her fingers itched to smash the tray to the ground. Mai resisted facing him immediately so that she could conceal her rolling eyes. Without a word, because opening her mouth would conclude to a mess of vomit, she turned her neck halfway to smile a spiteful smile at him. She was not in the mood for his snide remarks. All she was thinking about was a-hundred-and-one ways to kill Yasuhara Osamu.

_Number 17: Strap him inside a roller coaster car using duct tape and make him ride it until he dies of nausea._

She then sauntered back to the kitchen at a dying snail's pace, cradling her poor and abused tummy as she braced for another attack. She kept her head down and her other hand felt through the wall to guide her without the aid of looking ahead. A pink cup full of tea waited for her on a granite counter, taunting her with an aroma that now clung to her so desperately.

_Number 34: Strap him to a chair using duct tape and make him eat endless amounts of mothball cake._

The thought to cheat visited her several times already, but never did she succumb to its comfort. She was an honest person by nature so she could never do such a thing. That, and because Yasuhara planted a camera in the kitchen to ensure that she wouldn't take advantage of his absence.

_Number 58: Strap him to a table using duct tape and tickle him to death via hamster fur._

At last, her dragging feet reached the counter's edge. She stared at the cup long and hard as she gathered the strength to lift it up to her lips. Her entire body trembled at the smell alone. She mentally counted backwards from ten and at the end, she would tilt the cup to let gravity push the tea into her system.

_Number 85: While he's sleeping, strap him to his bed using duct tape and never look back. Hopefully, nobody discovers him as he dies of starvation and dehydration._

At negative sixteen, the cup's rim stayed anchored on her lips, the liquid inside remained untouched. A hint of green akin to a leaf's touched her cheeks, an explosion threatening to escape having one last hurdle to clear. Swallowing even just a single bead of tea would definitely help its breakout.

_Number 101: Strap him inside a small closet using duct tape and make him listen to his most hated song, Barney's 'The Green Grass Grows All Around', again and again until his eardrums explode._

The door opened, halting Mai from her ultimate demise. Her savior was Lin, presumably back from wherever Naru sent him to. Her eyes were on the brink of watering as she got in position to profusely thank the tall man from stopping her, but then he said, "Mai-san, a cup of tea for me, please."

At the mention of the t-word, the dam broke, leaving Lin with a crying mess. The perturbed man could not do anything as the girl forcefully handed him the unmanly pink cup of tea before screaming at the suspicious black camera situated near the corner of the room.

"FINE! YOU WIN!"

She then scampered into the bathroom, where she could cry and pee in peace.

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A/N: Thank you for reading! This was originally going to be a one-shot, but I cut it in half instead because the second part wouldn't get much justice if I left it as it was. Part two will be all about Mai's punishment ;) Can you guess what it'll be? And please! Don't act upon any of Mai's murder plans! (Unless you have an abundance of duct tape…)

To those who are waiting for updates on my ongoing stories, I know that I should really get a move on with those, but I'm gonna finish the next arc of S.S. before posting anything so that I can finally take guilt-free breaths knowing that I gave my best for the readers, and then I'll write the whole case in Repentance first to minimize my growing mountain of plot holes. I'm sorry for disappointing you and I hope you understand D: This little ficlet is kind of a please-don't-be-mad cookie...

Btw, have you guys read the new chapters of Akumu no Sumu Ie? *flails* I love Masako's new look~


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